Vogue breaks own record with 916-page September issue

NEW YORK — The US edition of fashion magazine Vogue said Thursday its upcoming September issue will be its biggest ever, surpassing the previous record-setter made famous in a documentary film.

With pop diva Lady Gaga on the cover, the 916-page door stopper, scheduled to hit newsstands in the United States on August 21, will mark the influential Conde Nast title’s 120th anniversary.

“It is our biggest issue ever,” a Vogue spokeswoman told AFP, although the fact is not trumpeted on a cover that promises “916 pages of spectacular fall fashion for all.”

The September 2007 issue, with “840 pages of fearless fashion … Our Biggest Issue Ever,” was the focal point of director R.J. Cutler’s 2009 fly-on-the-wall film documentary “The September Issue.”

It was the biggest magazine ever published, weighing nearly five pounds (2.27 kilograms), and the last Vogue to come out before the collapse of Lehman Brothers prompted the worst US economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Packed with hundreds of pages of advertising, Vogue’s September issue is consistently its biggest and most lucrative, coming out in time for the spring-summer pret-a-porter shows in New York, Milan and Paris.